Rieder: Digital journalism's financial challenge

Feb. 12, 2014
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GlobalPost co-founder Phil Balboni. / George M.Martell

by Rem Rieder, USA TODAY

by Rem Rieder, USA TODAY

Being a digital journalism entrepreneur is not for the fainthearted. Just ask Phil Balboni.

Five years ago, Balboni launched GlobalPost, whose mission is to help fill the gap caused by the massive retreat from international coverage by traditional news outlets. Unlike many of the journalism start-ups of recent years, GlobalPost is a business, not a non-profit.

When Balboni started, he relied entirely on freelancers. But his baby has grown up. It's an entrenched part of the media landscape. Today it boasts 13 staffers around the world as well as 50 freelancers. Its track record earned it a partnership with NBC News, in which NBC gets to use GlobalPost's stories and resources and the website gets valuable exposure and help selling advertising.

Yet despite the site's successes, it's not in the black.

"We're doing well, but the road (to profitability) is longer than we might have thought," says Balboni, the founder and former president of New England Cable News. "You've got to be a tough guy to do this. It takes a lot of belief in what we care about."

Balboni, GlobalPost's co-founder, president and CEO, is hardly alone. Digital ad dollars have proved to be a lot harder to come by than many anticipated, for legacy news outlets making the digital transformation and new players alike.

"The only thing wrong with journalism today is the revenue equation," Balboni says. "Until it sorts itself out, it's going to be difficult for journalism entities to be very successful financially."

In an unusual wrinkle, in its effort to survive and thrive, GlobalPost has turned to the world of philanthropy for help. The foreign news operation has received largess from the Ford Foundation, among others, to underwrite more ambitious reporting efforts than it could otherwise pull off.

That triggered a conversation that led to a new initiative.

"We realized we have the opportunity to shape the dialogue through shoe-leather reporting," says Charles M. Sennott, GlobalPost's co-founder and editor-at-large. "Ford wanted to know if we could also do it through commentary." The foundation ponied up $100,000 to help GlobalPost figure it out.

The result is VOICES, featuring commentary, analysis and video from contributors around the world, which launched in January. The project, focused on human rights and social justice, will be directed by editor Rebecca Lee Sanchez, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

VOICES has three regular columnists: Calvin Sims, a former New York Times reporter who is president of International House; Maria Hinojosa, founder of Futuro Media Group; and Linda Mason, founder of Bright Horizons, the world's largest provider of day care. All of them have numerous international contacts, and their mission, Sennott says, is to "act as ambassadors for us to find other voices from their journeys around the world."

Why is that such a big deal? Balboni notes that GlobalPost, which had 6 million unique viewers in January, had readers in 239 countries and territories last year. "It's important that we reflect a diversity of viewpoints, not just default to familiar voices."

The CEO points out that GlobalPost often puts its reporters in dangerous situations as they pursue the news. Many of their dispatches hardly can compete for eyeballs with the fluffy linkbait offered up by the BuzzFeeds of the world.

"It's worth it," he says. "But serious journalism remains difficult in the early stages of the digital revolution."